Candles and Glass
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: Written for Advent Challenge, Winter 2011. Based on prompt: "How the Gundam pilots celebrate Christmas."


Written for Advent Challenge, Winter 2011. Based on the prompt: "How the Gundam pilots celebrate Christmas."

I blame this on Florence + The Machine's, "Drumming Song" and my ever-present fondness for these characters. I copped out; there are only two of them here, but...well...oh, Wufei, I missed you. I also stole one line from another fic I wrote.

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><p><strong>Candles and Glass<strong>

"You know they made a law that anyone under the age of 18 isn't allowed to drink alcohol?" Duo laughs. "And after what I did for L2, they wouldn't sell me this bottle of whiskey."

Wufei fixes him with a serious look; Wufei is law abiding, but he does tend to appreciate irony with that dry sense of humor he has.

"So how did you manage to procure this?" Wufei asks, holding up the bottle that Duo has already forced down to the halfway mark. The glass is thick and the booze is strong; the economy has been recovering nicely.

Wufei regularly tastes liquor and gauges how good of a job he does preventing catastrophe by how strong it is.

"Stole it," Duo snorts, smirking.

Wufei just shakes his head, but sometimes, even irony and its repercussions on the moral order win out.

Wufei knows that Duo has been darting furtive looks around his Preventer quarters the moment he unexpectedly stepped foot through the door.

"Nice place," Duo says, and takes another mouthful of the whiskey.

"Thank you," Wufei replies. His quarters-room, really-is about 200 square feet. Its walls are made of metal; there is an empty desk; there are freshly starched, pressed Preventer uniforms in the closet and nothing else.

Regardless, he knows Duo means it, sitting there across from him on the bed.

"I brought you uh..." Duo trails off, and his eyes fall down to the floor as he moves the toe of his boot along it in a semi-circle, shuffling feet. Wufei despises nervous gestures.

"Yes?"

"I..." He just reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small object. His hands shoots out and he's still looking at the floor.

"Here," he says simply. "Merry...fucking Christmas or whatever."

Wufei's eyebrows raise and he shifts, looking at Duo's hand as if it might be a viper he's holding.

It isn't. It's a magnet.

"It's a magnet," Duo says, and finally raises his eyes to meet Wufei's. "Here," he says brusquely and offers the bottle. "Just... let's toast Christmas. That year we won the war was the night before, if you remember-"

"I remember," Wufei says quietly, and his fingers brush over Duo's lightly as he accepts the magnet first.

"It'll stick," Duo says simply, "to the walls. Cause they're...metal."

In dramatic cursive letters: _L-2...booze that's out of this world._It's neon, and garish, and ugly. Wufei smiles.

"You like it," Duo says, and it's not a question.

"It'll stick," Wufei repeats. He presses it to the wall, and sure enough, it stays. "Thank you," he adds.

"I paid for it," Duo adds, and Wufei almost hears self-consciousness in his voice. "Because it was for you."

Wufei doesn't respond, just takes the bottle out of Duo's hand. Duo's eyes meet his again as he takes a sip.

"Loosening up in peacetime?" Duo asks, amused, a smile blossoming on his face. His eyes are bright, and he looks older; that braid is still in tact though, and Wufei wonders where Hilde is.

"Perhaps," Wufei replies as he hands the bottle back to Duo. "To victories won at Christmas," he adds, and takes one last deep draw before handing the bottle back to Duo.

"Mariemaia still like to open presents?" Duo asks suddenly; Wufei's shoulders tense.

"She's getting a little too old for that," Wufei says in a neutral voice.

"'Tis the season for orphans," Duo says quietly, then whispers, "the lost ones that we think of, pray for."

"Yes," Wufei says in a hushed voice. He composes himself. "What brings you here for the holidays?"

"Traveling around," Duo says, smiling with a bittersweet look on his face, "paying my respects to the dead."

"Yes," Wufei says, "it is the time of year for that."

"The closest I can get is on an interspace shuttle," Duo says, still smiling, but it's dark and foreboding now, empty. "I think of Deathscythe every year, and light a candle for it."

"You light a candle for your Gundam?" Wufei asks, and there is some disbelief in his voice.

This is why there are psychiatric tests required to join the Preventers. But Wufei can't bring himself to judge Duo from that side, and he feels something like a landslide fall into his calm mind.

"Yeah," Duo says honestly, "and everyone else that died."

Wufei doesn't say anything, and silence pervades the metallic room for seconds that turn into minutes.

Duo drinks; Wufei thinks. The neon colors of the magnet stare out at him, the only color in the room of gray steel and cold surfaces.

Finally, Wufei exhales sharply. "I light one for Treize."

"Yeah," is all Duo says. The bottle is empty.

"I imagine you're planning on going to midnight mass," Wufei says, his face going blank. He lifts his eyes to meet Duo's again. "There are no churches here, I'm afraid."

Duo puts the bottle down. He touches his hand to Wufei's shoulder lightly and then draws away.

"Then pray with me," he says, "for those lost. For the beauty of good whiskey."

Wufei nods and folds his hands with Duo; they bow their heads.

Wufei imagines glittering paper. He imagines Une's long, unbound hair and a smile and Mariemaia's tinkling childlike delight as she unwraps her gifts.

He thinks of Nataku. He thinks of stars and books and he feels his eyes burn as Duo recites things in Latin he doesn't understand.

"This is beautiful, Wufei," Mariemaia says as she opens her gifts in his memory. "Beautiful."

Wufei folds his hands and prays.


End file.
